Wood on Words: Apostrophe moves in 'President's Day'

Monday

Last week Monday was Presidents Day — or Presidents’ Day or President’s Day. It depends on where you were reading it. A case can be made for each one.

Last week Monday was Presidents Day — or Presidents’ Day or President’s Day. It depends on where you were reading it. A case can be made for each one.

The first, with no apostrophe, is Associated Press style. It’s what you’ll see in most newspapers and some magazines — if they’re paying attention to AP style.

This approach looks at “Presidents” as an attributive noun or noun adjunct — simply put, a noun used as an adjective. It’s a relative newcomer to this holiday name game.

Because “Presidents” is plural, it conveys the notion that more than one president is being honored, specifically two with February birthdays: George Washington (Feb. 22) and Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12).

Some people have even said the day is for honoring all U.S. presidents. Alabama, strangely enough, pairs Washington with Thomas Jefferson in its celebration. I can guess why the state wouldn’t be a big Lincoln fan, but Jefferson’s birthday is in April.

The second spelling option, Presidents’ Day, uses the plural possessive, another way of relating the holiday to more than one president. “Presidents’ Day” gets Webster’s vote, as well as those of “Garner’s Modern American Usage” and others. It’s what you’ll see in most books and other magazines.

The option using the singular possessive, “President’s Day,” is the least popular, which seems strange. The one consistent connection for this holiday down through the years is with the birthday of one president, Washington.

In fact, there is no official federal holiday called “Presidents’ Day” (or either of the other variants). Washington’s Birthday became a paid day off for federal workers in the District of Columbia in 1879. In 1885, it was extended to all federal employees.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act (signed in 1968, implemented in 1971) created the current batch of three-day holidays that ignore actual commemoration dates in favor of extended weekends. In the case of Washington’s Birthday, it was set for the third Monday of February.

Interestingly, this ensured that the holiday could never fall on his actual birthday, because the latest possible date for the third Monday is the 21st.

Furthermore, back when “the Father of Our Country” was fathered, Britain and its colonies used the Julian calendar. So for the first 20 years of his life, Washington’s birthday was Feb. 11 — another date that can never be the third Monday.

The other three-day weekends created by this act involved moving Memorial Day from May 30 to the last Monday in May; moving Columbus Day from Oct. 12 to the second Monday in October; and moving Veterans Day from Nov. 11 to the fourth Monday in October. That last one didn’t last — the observance was moved back to the original day in 1978.

The odd man out in all of this is Lincoln, who doesn’t get a federal holiday. But his birthday is a holiday in several states, including Illinois (the Land of Lincoln) — even though on the day he was born, Lincoln was in Kentucky.

For most people, each of these Monday holidays is just another working day — with no mail — for those lucky enough to have a job, that is.

Too bad Congress isn’t as good at creating workdays as it is holidays.